Global food prices are soaring. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index – which covers a basket of basic food commodities (cereals, meat, dairy, vegetable oils, and sug ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-24
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change revealed what many had feared but were reluctant to admit: the continued failure to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions means that glob ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-20
At the start of the year, I expressed concerns about the outlook for financial markets, owing to all the considerable uncertainties that I could identify, and to the many other potential risks that we ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-19
The International Monetary Fund’s revised policy framework for managing cross-border financial flows, approved by its Executive Board last month, broadens the circumstances under which countries may r ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-18
Since the second quarter of 2021, inflation in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the eurozone has far exceeded their central banks’ 2% target. This surge could well be explained by the unexpe ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-17
A commentary by philosopher Jürgen Habermas has triggered one of Germany’s most ferocious political debates in decades, on the question of how the country should position itself in the widening Russia ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-17
With prices in many advanced economies surging, central banks are being roundly criticized for falling “behind the curve” on inflation. But they didn’t. Government policies and geopolitics constrained ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-16
Big shocks to the global economy, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, understandably capture the most attention. But a new worldwide pattern of “little fires everywhere” may be equally consequential ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-16
COVID-19 has taken at least 18 million lives, and it is anyone’s guess how many of those deaths were due to a lack of medical oxygen. Governments don’t want to talk about the issue, because that could ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-13
When US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau opened the Bretton Woods Conference almost 80 years ago, he reminded delegates that failures of international cooperation had led to the Great Depres ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-13
Humanity currently faces multiple, interlinked existential crises. The catastrophic consequences of climate change, ecological degradation, and biodiversity loss have cascading knock-on effects on hum ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-12
Wars often erupt and persist because of the two sides’ miscalculations regarding their relative power. In the case of Ukraine, Russia blundered badly by underestimating the resolve of Ukrainians to fi ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-12
A growing crescendo of commentary places the blame for the current surge in US inflation squarely on the Federal Reserve. But much of the criticism is stupefyingly naive about the political pressures ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-10
When I first met Jean-Louis Missika, then-Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of architecture and urban planning, in 2014, he welcomed me with an urgent question: How can we fast-track urban innovation? Y ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-09
Europe seems to change most decisively as a result of crises. The European Union was created in the aftermath of World War II. The 2008 global financial crisis and the eurozone crisis that followed le ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-06
Global geopolitical attention remains focused on the war in Ukraine. But a significant shift, potentially even more serious in the long run than Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, seems to be occurrin ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-06
When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, private-debt crises were probably already brewing – albeit hidden from view – in many parts of the world, as a result of the economic disruptions caused by the ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-06
As Russian missiles pound Ukrainian cities, and as Ukrainians fight to defend their country, some avowed realists might say, “So much for soft power.” But such a response betrays a shallow analysis. P ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-05
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently accused the West of fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. This is inaccurate and misleading. In fact, the West is supporting both sides of this conflict – an ...More
EJ Insight2022-05-04
